


a yorkshire lady of renown

by OfShoesAndShips



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9575807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfShoesAndShips/pseuds/OfShoesAndShips
Summary: There is a thief in Starecross.This is, thinks Maria Absalom, not what you might call a bad thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So! I've tagged this as book-canon because Joan's in it, but I'm taking my cue from the tv show in combining Maria Absalom's house and Starecross, because it's simpler and I want to. I have a plot in mind for this, and I hope I'll carry on with it, but in case I don't I just wanted to publish this one part.
> 
> The title is from Gentleman Jack by O'Hooley and Tidow, about Anne Lister.

Maria stops at the top of the stairs and tilts her head, looking down at the figure stepping cautiously around the flowers growing through the flowers. She is a small lady, dressed plainly in cream and deep, dusty red; Maria has not kept an eye on fashion since her death but it seems to her an old dress, much worn. There are distinct creases in it and she smirks, recognising how a skirt creases when you wear it riding as a man would. The lady kneels, then, inspecting one of the blooms, and her hair tips from its meagre moorings and tumbles down to pool on the floor. It looks like it would be wondrous to touch, she thinks, and loses herself for a second in imagining so – but not for long, for the lady stands up and, upon seeing her, lets out an admirably small sound of surprise.

“Didn’t know there were anyone living here,” she says, in a broad Yorkshire accent. It is a warming thing to hear, and Maria lets herself gaze upon the lady’s face as she descends the stairs, hiding curiosity behind what she hopes is a look of mysterious benevolence. The lady has fine, delicate features, though there is a stern look in her eyes which are wide and dark and hard as iron. Her skin is a soft, warm brown, and her hair now she’s standing has fallen across her face and tangled itself in the folds of her creamy, slightly stained fichu. The lady, upon being looked at for so long, smirks; her mouth twists itself up sideways, long and slightly unsettling, aided by a faint but slightly knotty scar that crawls through the corner of her mouth, and Maria is captured by the rather surprising notion that she is being observed just as she is observing.

“Or is ‘living’ not the word?” asks the lady, as Maria descends the last step. She trips, startled, and the lady laughs. It is not unkind, but there is an edge of smugness in it as disquieting as that long smirk.

“You are very perceptive,” she says.

“I should hope so.”

There is a short pause in which they just look at each other, and then the lady speaks again.

“I only came in for shelter – I can leave, if you’d prefer,” she says, with an air of confidence as if she knows Maria would not, in fact, prefer.

“The villagers leave a basket of food in the old dairy every week,” she says instead, “And there are rooms in the west wing that still have their rooves.”

No thanks does the lady give; instead she walks out and comes back in a few minutes later with a basket in the crook of her arm, eating a slightly browning apple with great enthusiasm.

“Joan,” she says, smiling, a drop of juice on her lip catching the light.

Maria almost laughs. “Are you nothing but irreverence?”

“You can find out, if you like,” she says, eyes bright and dancing, “Lady Absalom.”

Her eyebrow must rise, for Joan laughs.

“I have wits in my head,” she says, “And there ain’t nowt in Yorkshire I don’t know summat of, its witches least of all.”

“I see,” Maria says, softly, “But I know little of its,” she pauses, looking for a way of saying what she means delicately.

“Thieves?” Joan suggests, “Highwaywomen? Whores?”

Perhaps she would not appreciate delicacy, Maria thinks. “Indeed,” she says, “But I would wish to. Come up to my parlour?”

She turns before Joan answers, but she smiles when she hears a very soft _oh aye_? from behind her and footsteps on the stairs.


End file.
